It’s Time to Refresh the Agile Manifesto

Derwyn Harris | August 19, 2014

For many large and growing companies, Agile feels like an unscalable ideal. Here’s how to merge the Agile Manifesto’s intentions with the modern ways we need to work.

In 2001, when the Agile Manifesto was first published, technology in the workplace looked and felt very different to how it does today. High-speed Internet and data channels were still relatively new and communication channels more limited in variety. The sharing of information was nowhere near as easy as it is today. Nothing lived in the cloud and “drop box” was something you did by accident, if you were clumsy.

There’s no doubt that the Agile Manifesto has been great for software teams, but it has always presented challenges for business analysts and other stakeholders involved in the broader context of product development and management. The problems addressed by Agile in 2001 still exist today and are, in many cases, magnified by the changing landscape of product delivery, specifically:

More information than ever is available, maybe too much

Context, conversations and decisions go undocumented

Communication gaps widen due to geographically-dispersed teams

Time to market has dramatically shortened

Customer needs continue to go unmet

Many of us in the software business have lived through the challenges faced by Waterfall, Agile and hybrid teams alike, both from the technology and business sides. With great respect for the Agile Manifesto, in light of the seismic shift in technologies and the ways we need to work today, I believe that it is time to reconsider the Agile Manifesto, to rethink how it applies in the modern product development and management dynamic.

So what does it mean to take a modern look at the agile manifesto? Why does it matter? Download A Modern Take on the Agile Manifesto and discover how rethinking aspects of the Agile Manifesto can benefit your product development and management processes.

This is the first post in a series examining the changes that have occurred since the Agile Manifesto was published and the implications they have on how we might consider the Manifesto today. Read the next post in the series here. Find me on Twitter or share your thoughts on the Manifesto in the comments below.